


standing on the cliff face

by cascrane (thunder_and_stars)



Series: a dream deferred [2]
Category: no sleep in the city of dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28720512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/cascrane
Summary: el is falling.he’s not especially surprised by this, and he doesn’t mind. he’s always been good at falling.somewhere, far away -- probably back where he fell from (he forgets, sometimes, that he has to fall from somewhere in order to fall) -- someone is yelling. he doesn’t quite remember where he fell from. everything outside of falling seems muddied and far too complicated.
Series: a dream deferred [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105190





	standing on the cliff face

el is falling.

he’s not especially surprised by this, and he doesn’t mind. he’s always been good at falling. 

somewhere, far away -- probably back where he fell from (he forgets, sometimes, that he has to fall from  _ somewhere _ in order to fall) -- someone is yelling. he doesn’t quite remember where he fell from. everything outside of  _ falling _ seems muddied and far too complicated. 

he remembers maze, and then key. one of them is probably the one who was yelling, he thinks. he isn’t sure.

(were they with him? yes, they were, they had to be.)

he doesn’t have their names -- no, names are hard, confusing, overrated (he isn’t sure where that thought came from, either.) he sees their faces, though: long black hair and honeyed skin, dark eyes filled with warmth, smiling up at him, and a mop of blond waves falling into pale eyes and a shy grin.

they weren’t smiling when he fell, he thinks. he hopes they weren’t.

he hears maze’s voice -- it still has no name attached, and he can’t fit it with the image of him, but it is so familiar it  _ hurts _ \-- muttering a litany of words in a language el doesn’t speak. he vaguely remembers raven translating some of them as “idiot” or other various names remarking upon his lack of intelligence.

(he hopes the voice is just in his head, just a memory. it isn’t an ideal time for calling him stupid, and he hopes the other boy isn’t falling with him.)

(he doesn’t deserve to fall. el does.)

he, not dissimilar to not knowing where he is falling from, does not know where he is. he has been falling for a long time. the abyss (cavern? sky? ocean?) seems endless.

he has to hit something, eventually. he is unsure if time has slowed around him. it feels like an eternity. his heartbeat pounds in the back of his skull. 

(is there ground below him?)

he cannot see anything. he does not know if it is dark or light, only that it is a vast expanse of  _ nothing _ , stretching out forever.

he doesn’t want to hit the ground.

(he thinks, maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad if the other boy was there.)

he cannot see the ground. he cannot see where he came from. he can no longer hear maze and key -- yes, those were their names -- yelling above him.

he hopes they are not falling as well. 

he hits the ground much slower than he had expected to. his lungs ache and burn in his chest.

(is he underwater? is this what drowning feels like?)

nobody has ever been able to explain the feeling that washes over him, the second right before he knows he will die, here, wherever he is, alone. james, from the last home, had said that the words for it didn’t exist yet.

el had scoffed. that was a stupid notion. it didn’t matter if the words existed, because they would be words for something nobody alive had felt. words like that didn’t mean anything.

maia, the other resident of that house, said el was being rude. she said there had to be some way to describe it. el (not-so-politely) disagreed.

there wasn’t a way to describe it, because the way people described things was by comparing them to other things. 

some things, like that unnamed feeling, didn’t seem like anything else.  _ not everything feels like something _ , el had said. they ignored him.

(he was a lot smarter than anyone gave him credit for.)

he tries to remember maze and key again.

(he can’t.)

his vision fills with grey, and he gives in to the nothingness. he’s always belonged to the abyss, after all.

the world is suddenly gone, in the blink of an eye. (he hates blinking.)

he wakes with a start. maze is shaken from his slumber beside him by el’s thrashing. he tangles his fingers with el’s.

el holds on as tight as he can.

he’s tired of falling.

(he can’t lose this too.)


End file.
